Hope Against Hope… And Smile

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Writing Doll

A doll that can WRITE. Big deal! Did you see what robots or androids can do? That’a marvel to you. But a doll? Right. Except that this boy-doll is made 240 years ago. His “father”, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, was one of the most famous Swiss watchmakers of his time.

The boy-doll is programmable — the setup of the text entries is mechanically programmed and can be re-programmed to include new text. The boy-doll blinks his eyes, dips his quill into the inkwell and writes the words down in a beautiful calligraphic scroll, while his eyes follow the movement of his hand.

The automaton comprises of 6000 miniaturized detail. It works without a glitch to this day. Indeed, there were amazing Masters once, like you wouldn’t believe…